It was Paul Whiteman, America’s ‘King Of Jazz’ that first brought Billy Wilder to Berlin in May 1926. The twenty-year-old journalist rookie journalist from Vienna had so impressed the band leader with his review of their shows at the city’s Bristol Hotel that he invited him to come along to their next stop in the German capital.

‘I got my trip and three days in Berlin. I agreed without negotiating for a round-trip ticket. I had no intention of going back…. Vienna was grey but Berlin was colourful like a kaleidoscope.’

He arrived with one suitcase and a letter of introduction from his former employers and immediately landed a reporting job at Die Nachtausgabe and a furnished flat on Pariser Strasse.

‘I liked best to write in the coffee houses on my portable typewriter. I liked a little noise and activity. The smell of good coffee, the sight of rich layer cakes, the sound of conversation, the dancing of dishes… I didn’t like to write along in my furnished rooms.’

It was while working at Die Nachtausgabe that he met Olive Victoria, an English chorus girl dancing in a Berlin cabaret, his first love in Berlin.

Their conflicting work schedules meant him staying up late into the night to date her after shows and eventually, having fallen asleep at his desk, it also got him fired.

He moved to Schöneberg’s Victoria-Luisa-Platz and between jobs worked as an Eintänzer, dancing for money at the city’s glamorous Eden Hotel, opposite the Elephant Gate to Berlin Zoo. Also called Taxi-dancers, the men were paid-by-the-dance by single older ladies or those whose husbands wouldn’t dance. He even learned the Charleston to keep up with the times.

‘ I was light on my feet and light on theirs, and I had the best dialogue’

Hisburning ambition, however, was to write for the movies and by 1927 his smart networking at places like the Romanisches Cafe and the Hotel Adlon paid off and he got his first commission.

His first major screen-writing credit was for the 1929 film Der Teufelsreporter: Im Nebel Der Grossstadt starring the American circus performer and stunt man Eddie Polo.

It was in 1929, that Billy and group of fellow young, enthusiastic film makers took on an extraordinarily ambitious project – A full-length movie, with no professional actors, and filmed on the streets of Berlin with just 5,000 marks budget. No-one had a car, so the group travelled by bus to use outdoor locations such as Zoo Station and the lake at Nikolasee and, as they all had full-time jobs, could only film on Sundays.

Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday) opened in early 1930 at the UFA Theatre on the Kurfustendamm and despite early predictions of a disaster was a huge critical and commercial success. It also landed Billy Wilder his holy-grail of a job at Berlin’s UFA film studios.

A further thirteen UFA films followed, the most memorable being Emil und die Detektive (Emil and the Detectives) in 1931 and Scampolo, ein Kind der Strasse ( Scampolo, a Child of the Street) in 1932.

‘It takes a while to find your place, your routine, a group of friends, a place to live with a few possessions that make it feel like home. I had succeeded in doing that when there ominous signs.’

In the days after the Reichstag fire in March 1933, Billy Wilder and his girlfriend Hella Hartwig fled to Paris.

He returned to Berlin physically in 1961 to film cold-war caper One, Two, Three and for inspiration in 1959 for the classic Some Like It Hot.

Street girls in Berlin 1920s

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot 1959

‘I had wonderful times in Berlin. You might say it was a love affair I had, not with one girl or many girls, but with that city. It was the home of my youth. My heart beat faster every time I saw the Kurfürstendamm. Every journalist, artist and writer dreamed of going to Berlin, me included and it was better than the dream. I was robbed of the memory. You cannot think about the good and not of the bad.’

The nights are certainly getting warmer in Berlin with the arrival this weekend of The Tap Pack. This company of five male dancers and two musicians have come all the way from Australia for an eight-week residency and, if Friday’s opening night is anything to go by, have certainly landed with a bang.

Foto: Darek Gontarski / Design: Fokke Hoekman

The Tap Pack are Sean Mulligan, Ben Brown, Jesse Rasmussen, Tom Egan and Jordan Pollard, ably accompanied by Micky Blister on drums and Steffan Scholz on keyboard. These guys are the definition of the ‘ Triple Threat’ – they can sing, they can dance and they can make you laugh!

The vibe of the show is very much that of five guys hanging out in a bar with their new pals (us!) and it works beautifully. Big group numbers blend into comedy double-acts and solo party-pieces with ease.

The backbone of the musical offering is ‘Rat Pack’ classics ( Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Dean Martin etc) but not exclusively. The more up-to-date material fits in perfectly and is performed with just as much enthusiasm. It doesn’t feel in any way forced. Indeed, the second half kicks off with a ‘battle’ of classic versus modern and is a riotus crowd-pleaser. If you thought you didn’t need a swing/tap version of Wonderwall in your life , you were wrong!

The overhead railway had been completed in 1904, and the square resembled a small park prior to the arrival of the electric trams in the boom of post-WW1 Berlin.

The building rising to the left of the station cupola was home to the Schubert-Saal, one of the several ‘neighbourhood’ concert halls in Berlin. In the late 1920s the venue was host to many, diverse gay & lesbian social and cultural events.

Grand ‘beach parties’ were held by the Damenklub Altes Geld (Old Money Ladies Club) and, for the men, the Böse-Buben Balle (Bad-Boy Balls) were also a regular event.

“ We went to a ball for Sodomites. A great number of them were dressed as women, but I suppose that I was, in this respect, the only authentic article”

Vita Sackville-West, January 1929

The venue was very diverse in its programming, in addition to the gay and lesbian balls were cultural events such as operetta and theatre performances, cabarets and literary evenings.

The writer Else Lasker-Schüler organised what was to be her last public reading here on November 30th 1932 before she fled the city. The adjacent street is now named after her. Like so much of Nollendorfplatz, the building was destroyed by bombing in 1943.

In its place now is publisher and ‘lifestyle’ shop Brunos, gay accommodation agency Ebab and campaigning and welfare organisations, Maneo and Man-o-meter.

The imposing apartment blocks on the far corners of the square, and stretching east along Bülowstrasse were built around 1890 to 1900. However what is not immediately visible is the run-down, shoddy state they were in by the late 1920s.

People were burning coal for heating causing a great deal of soot and smog in the air, blackening the plasterwork of the buildings. Added to that was the parlous financial situation of many of the tenants and owners brought on by the catastrophic inflation of 1922/3 and the ongoing poverty it caused. Consequently, there was no spare money for the repair and upkeep of these grand mansion blocks. Many were let and sub-let and often dangerously overcrowded.

Shortly after the writers WH Auden and Christopher Isherwood arrived in the city in 1928 and 1929 respectively, they were joined by a young schoolfriend of theirs, Stephen Spender. In later life he would become the renowned poet Sir Stephen Spender but at the time he was content to keep up with his racy, adventurous friends and he also kept a diary of his time in Berlin.

“Then I would come to Nollendorfplatz, an eerie of concrete eagles with veranda like breasts shedding stony flakes of whatever glory they once had, into the grime and soot which cakes the walls of this part of Berlin. The bridges, arches, stations and commanding noise of the overhead railway have taken possession of the square and the streets leading eastward to the ever more sordid tenements.

A peculiar and all-pervading smell of hopeless decay comes out of the interiors of these grandiose houses, now converted into pretentious slums”

Stephen Spender, Summer 1929

WH Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Stephen Spender

Out of shot, to the right of the picture, was the impressive Neues Schauspielhaus (The New Theatre). Construction was started in 1905 and it opened in 1906, intended as a centre-piece for the newly laid-out Nollendorfplatz. The theatre was huge at 1200 seats and the building also featured, on it’s upper floors, an 1100-seat concert hall, The Mozartsalle.

By 1910 the Mozartsalle had been converted into a cinema and in the coming years would host the Friday-night premieres of films produced by the burgeoning Ufa film company based in Potsdam.

By the late 1920s, the theatre had been leased by director and producer Erwin Piscator, who staged extraordinary, ground breaking new work with contributions from the likes of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The theatre was destroyed during WW2 but the front of the building survived. The Mozartsalle Kino became The Metropol in the 1950s and, as a dancehall and concert venue, was the heart of West Berlin social life for decades.

It is now the night club and event venue Goya having undergone a €6m refurbishment at the end of the 1990s. It was never quite the success it promised to be and it is unknown as to whether it is currently operational at all.

By the early 1930s, Nollendorfplatz was the hub of gay and lesbian life in Berlin and a thriving entertainment district. Bars, cafes and dance halls were thriving for those who could afford it but were equally attractive to those who couldn’t. Prostitution was widespread and, seemingly, tolerated.

The rise to power of the National Socialist government in 1933, brought an end to many of the bars and clubs of Nollendorfplatz and across the city. The ‘Golden Twenties’ were over and very dark times lay ahead for the citizens of Berlin and beyond.

“Our street looked quite gay when you first turned into it and saw the black-white-red flags hanging motionless from windows against the blue spring sky. On the Nollendorfplatz, people were sitting out of doors before the cafe in their overcoats reading newspapers. Göring spoke from a radio horn at the corner. Germany is awake, he said. An ice cream shop was open. Uniformed Nazis strode hither and thither, with serious set faces, as though on weighty errands. The newspaper readers by the cafe turned their heads to watch them pass and smiled and seemed pleased.

Christopher Isherwood, March 1933

(Pic: Tony Le Tissier – Berlin, Then and Now)

The dome on the station was completely destroyed in WW2 and the one that is there today was constructed in 1999. Since 2014 it has been illuminated at night in rainbow colours to reflect the history and diversity of the neighbourhood. The station building itself is almost unchanged.

There are two very distinct memorials at Nollendorfplatz. Inside the station building is an enclosed chamber, visible only through a gate, dedicated to the memory of the railway workers killed in the first and second world wars. On the outside of the building is a triangular plaque, in memory of the gay and lesbian victims of the National Socialist regime.

Today, Nollendorfplatz remains at the heart of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities of Berlin.

Tenor and actor Joseph Schmidt was born in March 1904 in the Austro-Hungarian village of Davideny, which became part of Romania after WW1 and is now in Ukraine.

His mother encouraged him into a career in music despite objections from his farm-worker father.

He began singing at the Czernowitz Synagogue and by the age of 20 had featured in his first solo recital, performing the works of Verdi, Puccini, Rossini and Bizet alongside traditional Jewish songs.

In 1928 his uncle, Leo Engel, encouraged him to come to Berlin and his concert career began to flourish. He had also become an accomplished pianist .

He soon found that his diminutive stature – he was just 1.5 metres tall – effectively barred him from performing opera on stage but his voice was in great demand both on the radio and on recordings.

By 1930, he was living at Nürnberger Strasse 68 in the west of the city, opposite the famous Eden Hotel and overlooking the Elephant Gate of Berlin Zoo.

Over the next 6 years he appeared in 9 films and made numerous recordings for Ultraphone and Parlaphone, and in 1937 undertook a tour of the United States culminating in an appearance at the Carnegie Hall.

Under the National Socialist regime, restrictions on Jewish artists and performers were becoming increasingly harsh and he concentrated on touring in Belgium and the Netherlands where he was extremely popular.

When war broke out in 1939 he fled initially to France and then onto Switzerland, arriving penniless and in poor health. Despite being well-known and in possession of a US visa, he was interned in a camp for illegal immigrants at Girenbad, close to Zurich.

His health continued to deteriorate and despite his complaints of a throat infection and chest pains, medical attention was almost non-existent.

He died on November 16th 1942, aged 38.

In defiance of authority, all 350 inmates of the camp attended his funeral.

This is, surprisingly, a Berlin debut for the enduring talent that is singer-songwriter Ian Shaw.

Twice winner of Best Vocalist at the BBC Jazz Awards, Ian is a regular at renowned London clubs such as Ronnie Scott’s and Crazy Coq’s and at festivals around the world.

In this new solo show he will be presenting a repertoire of work by Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits in his own, very personal, style.

(Pic: Bob Barkany)

1st to 2nd October

20:00 (entry from 18:30)

Tickets €23,80 to €27,00

Concessions €12,50

Arthur Smith sings Leonard Cohen – the extended remix

4th to 5th October

Londoner, Arthur Smith was at the forefront of the ‘alternative’ comedy boom in the early 1980s and, 30 years on, his work today is a fresh and challenging as ever. This new musical show explores the work of Leonard Cohen and has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Support come in the form of the uniquely talented trio, The Smithereens.

(Pic: Steve Ullathorn)

4th October 19:00 (entry from 17:30)

5th October 20:00 (entry from 18:30)

Tickets €23,80 to €27,00

Concessions €12,50

Barb Jungr

Hard Rain – The songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen

6th to 7th October

One of Britain’s finest ‘chansonniéres’ Barb Jungr has toured the world, playing to packed-out houses and winning numerous awards. She has played residencies in New York and London cabaret clubs with critics drawing comparisons to Nina Simone and Peggy Lee.

She comes to Berlin to perform her highly-acclaimed latest album Hard Rain – The songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

Walking Tours

Isherwood's Neighbourhood

A circular walk through the Schöneberg of the late 1920s as seen by Christopher Isherwood

Visit the places he lived, socialised and documented in his Berlin Diaries of 1929 to 1933, the vibrance and edge of the Weimar Era. Accompanied by short readings from his works, see where 'Cabaret' was born, genders were blurred and films caused riots.

Tours are every Saturday at 11am and by arrangement. Please book via 10777tours.com.